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Winter in China - Beijing and Harbin and a bunch of flights on TG, CA & SQ

Winter in China - Beijing and Harbin and a bunch of flights on TG, CA & SQ

Old Jan 7, 2012, 8:06 am
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Winter in China - Beijing and Harbin and a bunch of flights on TG, CA & SQ

After our Moscow adventure during winter in 2011, Lydia was keen to freeze up again on another winter adventure. We stumbled on the snow and ice festival in Harbin, China through some forwarded email and after some more research online looked like a must-visit destination. Lydias family that include her mum, stepdad, sister and brother were also crazy enough to join us in the freezing temperature.

Redeeming flights through BMI miles appeared to be the best option to get to Harbin. One could buy up to 24K miles a year and 22.5K miles +cash would be enough for a return business class ticket. We had everyone buy the miles during a sale period and the entire ticket including the miles purchased, cash and taxes ended costing ~$1000 USD per person which would have been about the same amount required to purchase an economy class ticket.

Harbin is only served by Air China via Beijing or Cheng Du and Asiana via Seoul on Star Alliance. We initially wanted to route on Asiana through Seoul but Asiana has their black-out period during the time we wanted to travel. We settled for a routing with a stopover through Beijing since most of us had never visited Beijing before.

Booking the flights for 6 people using miles was somewhat of a challenge. It was hard to explain to everyone that it would be impossible for everyone to travel on the same flight especially in business class. In the end I routed Lydia and I on Thai through Bangkok and Beijing. On the return, we would take Air China back to Beijing before flying to Shanghai and then connecting to Singapore on Singapore Airlines. Instead of routing the flight back to Penang, we flew back to Penang on Air Asia from Singapore and we tagged on a Bali flight from the redemption a couple of months later for a weekend getaway to further increase the value of the redemption.

The rest of the family wanted to travel together on the same flight as much as possible. I routed them on Air China since they had good availability and even up to 4 seats from Singapore to Beijing. On the return, my sis-in-law and bro-in-law would fly from Beijing to Singapore on Singapore Airlines where as the adults would fly on Air China.

As usual, the trip report will be posted on my blog with trip installments below:

Introduction
Penang to Bangkok on TG
Bangkok to Beijing on TG
Hotel G Beijing
Exploring Beijing
Exploring Beijing - The Great Wall at Mutianyu
Exploring Beijing - The Forbidden Palace
Exploring Beijing - Temple of Heaven
Novotel Beijing Peace
Food in Beijing
Beijing to Harbin on CA
Food in Harbin
Ibis Harbin
Exploring Harbin
Sun Island Park Harbin
Harbin Ice & Snow World
Harbin to Shanghai via Beijing on Air China
Shanghai to Singapore on SQ
Conclusion

Last edited by calvinoeh; Feb 8, 2012 at 12:41 am
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Old Jan 8, 2012, 11:08 am
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I'm looking forward to this. Harbin is a place I'm not familiar with.
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Old Jan 8, 2012, 4:40 pm
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Just got back to Penang after a freezing time in Harbin. So much to share but couldn't do so in China with the horrible internet speeds I was getting.

Here's the first installment:

Penang to Bangkok on TG:

We got to the airport around 6 am for our 8am flight to Bangkok. There was no line in the business class line. Check-in was done by MAS agents with a supervisor from Thai Airways. Our bags were tagged all to Beijing and we were handed boarding passes and lounge invitation to the MAS Golden Lounge.



It was rather annoyingly warm and stuffy that not all the air-conditioning was turned on yet when we got to the lounge. The staff eventually turned it on a couple of minutes later. I caught up on email before enjoying a hearty breakfast of nasi lemak and coffee knowing that the food in the lounge would probably be better than on the plane later.

The lounge itself was pretty good with plenty of seating, a good view of the tarmac, business center, a kids play area and even a shower. It does puzzle me however who actually gets to use the lounge since the lounge is on the international wing of the airport and MAS does not serve any international destination from Penang.

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Last edited by calvinoeh; Feb 2, 2012 at 11:53 pm
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Old Jan 8, 2012, 4:49 pm
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Great

Calvin,

I have always enjoyed your TRs! They are always very nice. Did you choose to go to Harbin because of the Anthony Bourdain special that he had there or did you choose Harbin independently? I saw Anthony Bourdain's special to Harbin, and although it looked freezing, the food looked delicious out there! Thanks.
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Old Jan 8, 2012, 6:44 pm
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Originally Posted by SFflyer123
Calvin,

I have always enjoyed your TRs! They are always very nice. Did you choose to go to Harbin because of the Anthony Bourdain special that he had there or did you choose Harbin independently? I saw Anthony Bourdain's special to Harbin, and although it looked freezing, the food looked delicious out there! Thanks.
Thanks for the kind words! I didn't know Bourdain went to Harbin before.

We saw many pictures and articles on the ice & snow festival and we just had to visit. Yes, it WAS freezing. Never felt that cold before in my life but it was worth it. Got some pretty good pictures with the sunset & all - that made the trip.

I'll talk more on the food in the TR but I was somewhat disappointed with the food in Harbin. It was really oily and way too salty. We had some pretty good dumplings though..
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Old Jan 8, 2012, 7:39 pm
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Cold

Originally Posted by calvinoeh
Thanks for the kind words! I didn't know Bourdain went to Harbin before.

We saw many pictures and articles on the ice & snow festival and we just had to visit. Yes, it WAS freezing. Never felt that cold before in my life but it was worth it. Got some pretty good pictures with the sunset & all - that made the trip.

I'll talk more on the food in the TR but I was somewhat disappointed with the food in Harbin. It was really oily and way too salty. We had some pretty good dumplings though..
Calvin. Check out his report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuvQBIgy9_o

That is the one thing he said throughout his entire trip: it was COLD. I will be very interested to see the rest of your report!
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Old Jan 10, 2012, 3:12 am
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Looking forward to reading the rest of your report.
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Old Jan 11, 2012, 3:39 am
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I have subscribed to this thread and keenly await your updates..
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Old Jan 11, 2012, 7:20 pm
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Bangkok to Beijing on TG

Our flight from Penang parked at a domestic gate so we had to be bused to the international terminal. It took an annoying 15 minutes for the bus ride and the walk through security rescreening and the transit area before we were in the Thai Royal Spa lounge for our 30 minute neck and shoulder massage. My back was killing me the entire week and the massage did wonders even though it was cut short by about 5 minutes so we would make our flight to Beijing. We only had an hour plus layover in Beijing.



As we made our to the departure gate which was one of the last ones in C-gate, I tried to set the expectation to Lydia that the seats and IFE were not going to be that good since we were probably going to be on the old 744 especially since we’ve tried the F cabin before previously. I caught a glimpse of our plane from a far and noticed the 2 engines on each wing so we probably didn’t get “TGed” and our flight was still going to be a 744. I was pleasantly surprised that when we reached the gate to see that yes the plane did have 2 engines on each wing but it didn’t have the 744 upper deck hump. We got “TGed” to an Airbus 346 which had better seats and IFE in all cabins. The only downside was that I didn’t bother double checking our seats when we checked in at Penang assuming we had our pre-booked upper deck seats. We ended up with middle seats and would have preferred window seats for the view.

Business class was pretty much full on this flight with only a couple of empty seats. Pillows, blankets, headphones, menus and amenity kit were waiting for us in the seats when we got to our seats.

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Last edited by calvinoeh; Feb 2, 2012 at 11:53 pm
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Old Jan 13, 2012, 6:49 am
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Hotel G Beijing

We stayed at the Hotel G Beijing for our first night taking advantage of the Hotel G mistake on booking.com where a $200 USD room was available for 200 Chinese Yuan or ~$30 USD inclusive of breakfast. What a deal! Too bad I could only get those rates for just our first night in Beijing. I must commend the hotel for honoring the mistake especially since they even allowed the 4 others on this trip who arrived at ~8 am to check-in early.



Hotel G is one of those cool, stylish and modern hotels which reminded me of the Vie in Bangkok. We later found out that the random colors seen in the picture could be changed individually by people in their rooms. The hotel was somewhat hard to find with most cab drivers not knowing where the hotel is. We would recommend printing a map and telling the cab driver the main road that the hotel is on. We personally had to hunt around a couple of minutes before spotting the hotel.
Hotel Lobby

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Last edited by calvinoeh; Feb 2, 2012 at 11:54 pm
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Old Jan 14, 2012, 1:33 am
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Exploring Beijing

We had 3 bright and sunny days in Beijing. Sure it was still freezing cold with temperature close to zero Celcius but I heard that it was a rarity to see blue skies in Beijing. My first impressions of Beijing was how surprisingly modern, clean and somewhat organized the city is. I'm not sure where got I the misconception from but I was expecting Beijing to be loud and chaotic which really wasn't the case. It wasn't the uber organized Hong Kong or Singapore but reminded me of cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.

The one thing to get used to however is crossing with streets. Even with pedestrian crossings, it was an adventure to make sure you don't get knock down by an incoming car. Cars have right of way in China.

During the 3 days, we did the must-do tourist attractions such as visiting the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Olympic Park and the Forbidden Palace in addition to the endless visits to the malls and eating around. I'll leave you with some pictures for now but I'll post more details on the visit to the Great Wall, Temple of Heavan and Forbidden Palace in upcoming posts.

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Old Jan 14, 2012, 11:00 am
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Excellent report!

Amazing you found that error rate on the hotel!
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Old Jan 14, 2012, 12:40 pm
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great report so far, cannot wait to read the Beijing
part.
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Old Jan 15, 2012, 12:40 am
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Exploring Beijing - The Great Wall at Mutianyu

There are three popular spots to visit the Great Wall from Beijing. Badaling would be the closest but it is supposedly the most touristy. Simatai is the furthest away but the less restored which is good for those who want to see the wall as close to it's original state. We ended up choosing to go the wall at Mutianyu since it was a good in between option - less than an hour drive from Beijing and less touristy and packed if compared to Badaling.

To get to Mutianyu, one needs to rent a car and driver that will take you there and wait for you when you explore the wall. There are many driver recommendations on tripadvisor and flyertalk and we picked one that ended up being good. Send me an email if you want the contact for the driver we used.

We set off for Mutianyu even before the sun was up at 6.30 in the morning. We got to Mutianyu right as the sun was coming up and it made for some stunning views. There are 3 ways up to the wall - a cable car, a ski lift type ride or you could hike/walk up. We chose the ski lift ride as for a couple of reminbi more, it includes a ride down on the toboggan slide (more on that later).

Since we were there early, there were only a couple of other tourists around. The tour buses haven't arrived yet. At certain parts of the wall, we were the only ones around which made the experience so much more enjoyable and peaceful. Pictures that we took earlier in the morning also turned out better as there was no haze.




We spent the next couple of hours just walking (more like hiking) a long the wall. One some parts, it did get pretty steep and it was challenging especially in the cold. Lydia and I gave up when we reached the cable car stop where as my bro and sis in laws continued to the end.

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Last edited by calvinoeh; Feb 2, 2012 at 11:55 pm
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Old Jan 15, 2012, 9:35 am
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cold

Wow, Beijing looks cold. I wonder what Harbin's gotta be like! Great TR! Thanks.

I want to see what that Harbin food looks like also!
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